


we send forth men to battle, but no such men return

by bethejerktomybitch



Category: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Movies)
Genre: Aftermath of Torture, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Permanent Damage, Recovery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-28
Updated: 2019-04-28
Packaged: 2020-02-09 06:15:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,313
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18632479
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bethejerktomybitch/pseuds/bethejerktomybitch
Summary: In Auror training, they had been taught what to do in case they were ever confronted with the Cruciatus curse.Percival remembered it like it was yesterday. His instructor had been a grizzled, scarred wizard named Atticus Rattigan, a living legend who had himself experienced the torture curse more than once.Turns out, Rattigan had had no goddamned clue what he’d been talking about.





	we send forth men to battle, but no such men return

**Author's Note:**

> Graves is one of my favorite characters, and I really hope they'll bring him back someday. In the meantime, I busy myself with writing angsty stories about him.  
> As per usual, English is not my first language, and any comments will be appreciated.

In Auror training, they had been taught what to do in case they were ever confronted with the Cruciatus curse.

 

Percival remembered it like it was yesterday. His instructor had been a grizzled, scarred wizard named Atticus Rattigan, a living legend who had himself experienced the torture curse more than once.

                                                                                                                    

“Your only chance is to go somewhere far away.” he’d said, pacing in front of the young recruits with his wooden cane thumping against the floor. “Let your mind wander. Detach yourself from the pain. Soon enough, you won’t feel it anymore.”

 

Turns out, Rattigan had had no goddamned clue what he’d been talking about.

 

* * *

 

 

Percival tried, at first. He tried to let his mind go somewhere else, tried to use happy memories to shield himself from the excruciating pain tearing through his veins like liquid fire.

 

It worked, for a while. When the pain became too much he floated away, fled into the memories of Seraphina’s arms around him, of her lips against his, of the way she could brighten his day just by stepping into a room. Once, he even smiled as Grindelwald was torturing him, and got three deep slashes across his torso for that.

 

But it didn’t last.

 

Slowly but surely, it became harder to remember the sound of her voice. Their memories together faded into a blur, and her name became as meaningless as the screams that left his mouth. All that remained was her face, etched into his mind like a photograph.

 

He clung to it like a drowning man. If only he remembered, he knew the pain would eventually stop. If only he remembered, everything would be alright.

 

He remembered. He remembered.

 

_He forgot._

* * *

 

 

They came for him, eventually, though it was all the same to him by then.

 

Someone shone a light into his eyes, bright enough to make him squint. Someone was talking too, but words had lost all meaning inside the fiery hell that had become his reality.

 

He closed his eyes and waited for the pain, but it did not come. Instead there was another voice, and a strange soothing sensation like cold water lapping over him.

 

Then there was nothing.

 

* * *

 

 

There were voices now every time he drifted back into awareness, though he couldn’t tell if he was really awake or if he was just dreaming. Once, he thought there was another hand holding his, soft and warm, but then it was gone again.

 

Someone put a cup to his lips with a gentleness that seemed wrong, somehow. A cool and tasteless liquid slid down his throat, and unconsciousness took him again.

 

He dreamed of a city with great buildings that touched the sky, and of a faceless woman taking his hand and pulling him through the streets. He dreamed of sunlight streaming through a window, of warm lips against his, of snow falling silently.

 

He dreamed of pain and the taste of blood in his mouth, and found the familiarity of that dream more soothing than all the rest.

 

* * *

 

 

He opened his eyes to blinding white light.

 

In the room with Grindelwald, there had only ever been darkness, and sometimes the flashing red and green of a curse. He blinked, but the light remained. _Strange_ , he thought, but it was hard to focus on that thought, and so he closed his eyes again.

 

When he opened them again, a face was floating above him.

 

The face seemed wrong, out of place. It wasn’t Grindelwald’s face, framed by hair as pale as bones, and his own face neither, the one that Grindelwald had taken to wearing. Its lips were moving, he noted distantly. There were sounds too, a strange buzzing in his ears that could’ve been words.

 

He felt vaguely like he should try to listen but didn’t know how. Eventually, the buzzing stopped. His eyelids were growing heavy and he tried his hardest to keep them open. If he closed them for even a second, he was sure the face would vanish and never reappear.

 

Whoever the face belonged to was crying, he realized after a moment. He felt a sudden urge to reach out and wipe the tears away, but his hand only twitched weakly. Something warm closed around it. Another hand?

 

Eventually, he lost the fight to stay awake.

 

* * *

 

 

Slowly, the buzzing that greeted him whenever he woke up crystallized into words. The words didn’t make much sense to him, but he found them strangely comforting nonetheless.

 

“Drink… better.” said the voice that came with gentle hands and bitter potions. Other voices spoke of _more time_ and _permanent damage_ and _should’ve realized._ And every so often, a quiet, soothing voice would tell him that everything would be alright.

 

He liked that voice best. It belonged to the face that had been crying, to warm hands holding his own, to the sound of soft breathing lulling him back to sleep.

 

Once, when the voice went silent and the hands slipped away, he tried to ask them to stay, but all that left his lips was a hoarse breath.

 

* * *

 

 

He was awake more often than not now.

 

The room he was in was white and full of light. There were always people there. Sometimes they talked to him, asked him questions he didn’t understand or know the answer to, but most of the time they would just whisper to each other. They never smiled, and wore masks of stony composure.

 

Every evening, when the white of the room turned into grey, the woman would come and sit in the chair next to his bed. She smiled whenever she looked at him, but there were always unshed tears glistening in her eyes. She talked to him too, spoke of places and names and people he didn’t recognize.

 

He knew that she’d told him her name, but he could never seem to recall.  Sometimes she would call him Percival. He wondered if that was his name.

 

* * *

 

 

“I know you.” he said once, when she came to visit. His voice was barely more than a whisper and he wished he could take it back, because she began crying as soon as he’d spoken.

 

Eventually, she smiled at him through the tears. “Yes.” she said softly. “Yes, you do.”

 

* * *

 

 

“Would you like to go for a walk?”

 

He blinked up at her slowly. She was smiling. He liked her smile; whenever he saw it the memories of Grindelwald’s curses flowing over him seemed very far away.

 

“Yes.” he said. Her smile grew wider, and he found himself smiling back. It felt strange and foreign, an expression that his face was not meant to wear. “Good.” she said. “Come on.”

 

The ground swayed under his feet when he stood up, but when her hand slipped into his the world stopped spinning. She led him out of the white room, through a white corridor with countless doors, until they stopped in front of a large window.

 

Below them, he could see the city he had dreamed of, the sky-high buildings twinkling with light, the people like ants bustling through the streets. “What is this place?” he asked in awe.

 

She squeezed his hand. “That’s New York.” she said. She sounded sad again, and he wished he hadn’t spoken. “That’s your home.”

 

 _My home._ Suddenly, his chest felt too tight. Did he have a home? Had there ever been another place before Grindelwald and then the white room? There must have been, but in his mind he found only emptiness.

 

“I don’t remember.” he said, panicked. “Why don’t I remember?”

 

The sweet scent of her perfume filled his nose as she leant over and kissed his cheek. “That’s okay.” she whispered, her voice choked. “You don’t have to remember. I can remember for the both of us.”

 

* * *

 

 

Lancaster was waiting for her when she stepped into her office.

 

Seraphina sighed. She knew what he was here for, of course. There was only ever one thing he wanted to talk about.

 

He didn’t even bother with the courtesy of a greeting. “How is he?” he asked. “Unchanged?”

 

“Yes.” Seraphina said stiffly. She sat down at her desk without looking at him, but he didn’t take the hint.

 

Lancaster cleared his throat. “Madam President, with all due respect, it’s becoming increasingly unlikely that Graves will be able to provide us with information about Grindelwald.” he said. “He hasn’t given us anything of value yet.”

 

She felt her jaw tighten, her hands clenching into fists beneath her desk. “He will.” she said. “He just needs more time.”

 

Lancaster threw his hands up in frustration. “More time? It’s been six months since he was rescued. Merlin’s sake, he doesn’t even talk to anyone!”

 

“He talks to me.” Seraphina knew that she sounded a bit like a petulant child, but she didn’t care. This was Percival they were talking about, not some informant that had proved useless. And he was getting better, she was sure of that, even if no one else seemed to agree.

 

Lancaster kept his face blank with a visible effort. “Then you need to start asking him the right questions.” 

 

The rush of anger took her almost by surprise. She rose abruptly, glaring at Lancaster with blazing eyes. “You need to remember, Lancaster, that I am the one who made you head of Magical Law Enforcement.” she said coldly. “I can just as easily take that position away from you. Do not question my authority again, ever.”

 

For a moment, he looked like a scolded child. Then he inclined his head slightly. “My apologies, Madam President.” he said stiffly before he left her office without another word.

 

Seraphina sank back into her chair, feeling like she was about to cry.

 

* * *

 

 

They had moved Percival to a new room, one with a large window overlooking the city. He was sitting in front of it when she entered, looking at the streets of New York spreading below him.

 

“Hello, Percival.” she said softly. He turned his head to look at her and almost smiled. “I know you.” he said.

 

That was the way he always greeted her. It had nearly brought her to tears every time in the beginning, but now she found it strangely reassuring. He never remembered her name, and didn’t seem to recall anything about the years they’d known each other, but he always knew her. It was a small comfort, but one she needed desperately.

 

“Yes, you do.” she said. When she went over to kiss him on the cheek, he smiled in earnest.

 

Seraphina sat down in the chair next to his and simply watched him in silence for a while. She’d prided herself on knowing him so well once, and yet she had not known that for months she hadn’t been kissing him but an imposter, hadn’t known that she had taken the most dangerous dark wizard of all times into her arms and her bed.

 

The guilt tasted like copper in her mouth. She should’ve known. If she had, none of this would have happened. If she had, Percival would still be the brave, quick-witted, determined man she’d fallen in love with.

 

“You’re sad.”

 

She blinked, startled. Percival was looking at her, face marked with worry. “I am.” she admitted, with some hesitation.

 

His forehead furrowed. “Why?” he asked.

 

Seraphina tried to smile, but instead the words tumbled out before she could stop them. “Because it’s my fault Grindelwald hurt you.”

 

Her voice cracked and she turned her face away so he would not see her tears. She should never have voiced her thoughts aloud. Percival wouldn’t understand, probably wouldn’t even remember what she was talking about, and it would only trouble him. _I try to help him, yet I keep hurting him,_ she thought.

 

Suddenly, there was a hand on her shoulder. “It’s not your fault.” Percival said, very quietly. “It’s not your fault.”

 

She looked up, and when her eyes found his for a moment it was as if Grindelwald had never come to New York, as if her world had never come crumbling down around her. For a moment he was her Percival again, and she had never loved him more.

 

Then his hand fell away, his face went blank, and reality came creeping in. “Why are you crying?” he asked, confused. “Did I say something wrong?”

 

 Seraphina wiped her tears away, forced herself to smile. “No.” she said, squeezing his hand. “You did everything right.”

 

_It was me that did something wrong._

* * *

 

 

“I resign.”

 

Silence followed her words. Seraphina looked at the baffled faces surrounding her, and felt a strange sense of satisfaction. Let them deal with the aftermath of this mess of a war, let them pick up the pieces. She’d given enough, lost enough. It was time to take care of the things that remained to her.

 

The raised voices, the cries of outrage, Lancaster’s scandalized sputtering – none of it mattered to her. The only thing that mattered was waiting for her.

 

She had never felt as free as in that moment she walked out of the council room.

 

* * *

 

 

Percival met her with a smile. “I know you.” he said, and the words made her heart soar.

 

The healers had said there’d be nothing left of him after Grindelwald’s torture, and yet he knew her. They’d said he’d never regain his memories, and yet he’d been telling her about his dreams lately, dreams that she knew had really happened. In time, more and more would come back, she was sure of that. In time, the wounds would heal.

 

He would never be the old Percival Graves again, but that would be enough.

 

She reached out, took his hand. “I’m here to take you home.” she said.

 

His smile fell. “I don’t… I don’t remember home.”

 

Seraphina’s smile didn’t waver. “That’s okay.” she said. “You don’t have to remember. I can remember for the both of us.”

 


End file.
